The Science of Listening in Bioacoustics Research: Sensing the Animals' Sounds

Abstract

Bioacoustics is an interdisciplinary field bridging biological and acoustic sciences, which uses sound technologies to record, preserve, and analyse large datasets of animal communications. But it is also a world, made of the meanings created through inter- and intra-species communication. This article empirically explores a variety of bioacoustics research, including interviews with researchers, as part of a broader qualitative study, in order to theorize the expanding sense and sensation of a global biosphere and sonic data. By giving a sustained and detailed account of the science of bioacoustics, particularly how its modes of measurement allow for a new way of understanding what is involved in the de-centred modes of hearing that re-centre acts of listening and, by extension, the nature of the relation between researcher and researched, the article contributes to methodological discussions regarding the longstanding questions of how researchers and scientists are implicated in the knowledge and objects they collectively produce.

To Catch a Cicada

“…Science & Technology Studies XX(X) also to share amongst each other to confirm the species origin of a call. Improvements in the portability, durability, and fidelity of recording equipment has increased the extent to which recordings are seen as a crucial tool in the arsenal of the researcher (Vallee, 2018). As Bruyninckx (2018) notes in the case of the science of birdsong, improvements in both recording equipment and analytical techniques, such as spectrograms, were a major driver in the field in coming to terms with the complexity of the phenomena of bird song.…”

Listening for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Sonic geography and the making of extinction knowledge

“…Additionally, many stress that sonic knowledge production does not occur independently from other senses (e.g. Rice, 2010, p. 50; Vallee, 2018).…”

“…It is thus not only bodies and senses, but particular , skilled bodies embedded in particular , complex places that produce ecological knowledge. Especially for research regarding elusive, nocturnal, or unpredictable creatures, researchers also employ technologies to enhance sensory attunements in the field: ultrasound bat detectors, camera traps, and autonomous recording units (ARUs) (Mason & Hope, 2014; O’Mahony et al, 2018; Vallee, 2018). However, such technologies are not simply neutral prostheses for human senses: Sensing technologies constitute—and are enrolled in—networked, more-than-human ecologies with wide-ranging political implications (Gabrys, 2012).…”

“…Spectrograms are common in bioacoustics, partially due to the high pitches and fast cadence of birdsong, as well as the belief that they offer a more ‘objective’ form of analysis (Mundy, 2009). Additionally, ARUs, which are now widely used in ecological surveys of all kinds, collect huge amounts of data, making listening with human ears not only inefficient, but often impossible to do in entirety (Vallee, 2018, p. 58). In their 2006 and 2007 searches, for instance, the Auburn-Windsor team collected over 46,000 hours of ARU recordings (Swiston, 2008, p. 28).…”

“Chinese Elm 1030595 . . . (or can I call you Dale??)”: Communication and representation in mediated encounters with nonhuman others

“…The ocean’s inaccessibility makes clear the fundamental role that technology plays in making the sea sense-able which, together with human apprehension and guidance, creates new knowledge. But this is also the case for spaces more traditionally inhabited by humans: Mickey Vallee (2018) argues that, in using new autonomous recording devices to listen to bird sounds at a rate more complex that human audition can process, anthropocentric perspectives and modes of reasoning are diminished, and new spatialized intimacies between researcher and researched are opened up. Similarly, Jennifer Gabrys (2016) discusses the use of wireless sensor networks to study environmental phenomena and believes that such a practice gives way to the co-emergence of agencies with a generative capacity for worldmaking.…”